Child & Family Services (CFS) is one of the oldest nonprofit organizations in Southeastern Massachusetts, founded in 1843. CFS has been providing services to our population of focus (POF) for over 100 years. CFS proposes to serve 1,600 unduplicated individuals experiencing serious mental illness, serious emotional disturbance, substance use disorders, or co-occurring disorders who reside within our geographic catchment area throughout this 4-year project. CFS pledges to support recovery from mental health and substance use disorder challenges through providing our population of focus (POF) with evidence-based interventions and service options including: Trauma-Informed Care (TIC), Motivational Interviewing (MI), and Adolescent Community Reinforcement Approach (A-CRA) to address the needs of our POF and achieve desired outcomes. CFS geographic catchment area includes the Greater New Bedford and Fall River areas of Massachusetts. Our project will focus on improving 4 areas identified through our needs assessment that directly links with our project goals to increase access to care to our POF: (1) long waiting lists for our POF in our clinic; (2) insufficient training program; (3) low clinician retention rates; and (4) inadequate scheduling processes. CFS was awarded our CCBHC Expansion grant in February 2021: SM-20-012. CFS has utilized our existing CCBHC-E as a pathway to create change, restructure our clinic, and address these concerns. Our CCBHC exceeded our FY1 service goals by 76% for children and 15% for adults, including our under-resourced populations. CFS is committed to continue to increase access to and availability of high-quality services that are responsive to the needs of our community. Our project goals include: (1) increasing access to care and enhancing our existing CCBHC to reduce health disparities within our POF; (2) enhancing our Clinic Training Program, highlighting our identified EBPs, to assist with staff retention throughout our Clinic; and (3) implementing Centralized Scheduling across our clinics to increase access to and availability of high-quality services. CFS will impact the following health disparities: concerns with overall wellbeing, mental health and substance use for youth and veterans with untreated trauma; increased risk of LGBTQ+ youth developing HIV due to lack of sexual health education that is LGBTQ+ inclusive; LGBTQ+ adults experiencing mental health concerns, unstable housing and food insecurities; and Hispanic/Latino community experiencing disparities in education, housing, and jobs (Silvia, 2020). Based on current Census data and agency demographic data, our clinic will serve our POF, comprised of 39% youth and 61% adults, 4% LBGTQ+, .5% veterans; 56% female; 43% male; 1% transgender or non-binary; 9% Black/African American; 1% American Indian/Alaska Native; 1% Asian; 14% Hispanic/Latino; and 75% White (non-Hispanic), with particular attention given to youth, LGBTQ+ community, Hispanic/Latino community, and veterans. CFS utilizes a data driven system to assess health disparities related to access to services, service utilization and outcomes. Our CQI plan considers the effectiveness of meeting the cultural and linguistic needs of our identified sub-populations. CFS adheres to Cultural and Linguistic Appropriate Standards (CLAS) and Guidelines. CFS will continue to operate in compliance with the CCBHC Certification Criteria and directly provide all required services through employed staff. CFS does not have DCOs. Our CCBHC develops, implements, and maintains a clinic-wide data-driven CQI plan for clinical services and clinical management, including training and monitoring fidelity of EBPs. CFS is committed to reduce health disparities among our POF by increasing access to care, enhancing our training program, increasing clinician retention rates and improving scheduling processes, while meaningfully involving our POF in their own care and CCBHC Advisory Group.
